Stories That Move

James Bloedel: Balancing Trust in Nonprofit Organizations

• DreamOn Studios • Season 1 • Episode 21

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In this episode of "Stories that Move," we’re talking all about trust in the nonprofit world with James Bladel, Chief Strategy Officer of Historic. James shares his years of experience helping nonprofits tackle challenges and make a real impact.

He breaks down the two types of trust every nonprofit needs: relational trust, which builds collaboration and understanding within teams, and functional trust, which focuses on accountability and getting things done. Balancing both is key to long-term success.

Plus, James dives into how nonprofits can thrive by using empathy and smart strategy, and why a design thinking approach is a game-changer when it comes to connecting with beneficiaries and donors.

If you’re ready to rethink trust in your own organization and learn practical steps to drive change, this episode’s for you. Hit play, subscribe, and drop a review—let us know what you think!

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Speaker 1:

But for nonprofits especially, is the balance between relational and functional trust inside their organization. You might have the clearest mission vision and a strategic three-year plan for how you're going to go accomplish those things, but if you don't have functional and relational trust balanced inside your organization, none of it's going to get executed on.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to another episode of Stories that Move. I'm Mason Geiger, co-founder and CEO of DreamOn Studios, and, as always, I'm joined by my co-host, co-founder and executive producer, matt Duhl. Today's guest is someone who's making a big impact by helping organizations do good in smarter, more sustainable ways.

Speaker 3:

That's right. Our guest today is James Bladel, the Chief Strategy Officer of Historic. James has spent years working inside nonprofits, where he saw firsthand the challenges they face in turning passion into measurable impact. Now at Historic, he helps nonprofits across the country and even around the world design better ways of working that lead to faster, more sustainable and scalable results.

Speaker 2:

And not only does James bring incredible insights into innovation in the nonprofit world, he's also a big fan of doing things differently to stand out and make a bigger impact. We're excited to dive into his journey and hear how he's helping organizations create meaningful change.

Speaker 3:

So let's get into it. Please welcome James Bladel to Stories that Move. Welcome back to Stories that Move, brought to you by DreamOn Studios. I'm your host, matt Duhl, with me here, as always, my good friend and business partner, mason Geiger. Mason, how are you?

Speaker 2:

doing today, Doing really really good. Excited for our conversation today with Mr James.

Speaker 3:

Bladel James. Welcome to Stories that Move.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3:

Yes, absolutely so. James is the Chief Strategy Officer at Historic, and we are going to dive into that and find out what that means. James, where are you coming from today?

Speaker 1:

I'm coming to you from Wichita Kansas.

Speaker 3:

Okay, awesome.

Speaker 1:

I have a whole pitch around Wichita. The Chamber of Commerce doesn't pay me to do it yet, but we'll get there.

Speaker 2:

I love it. What's your pitch for Wichita? I'd love to hear it. Oh man.

Speaker 1:

Centr the country, centrally located. You can get pretty much anywhere you want to in a two to three-hour flight. Cost of living is super low. It's great there's a good food scene, good coffee scene, good craft brewery scene out here. You know, occasional tornado or two comes through. Give me a clip of that.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, so that comes through.

Speaker 3:

Give me a clip of that oh man, so that's awesome how long have you guys been in Wichita?

Speaker 1:

We moved here. I think we're about to hit three years. Previous to that, we had been in Chicago for quite some time. I was in Seattle for a little bit before that, but grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, wisconsin.

Speaker 2:

Very cool, very cool.

Speaker 3:

So tell our listeners just a little bit before that, but grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, wisconsin. Very cool, very cool. So tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself, about Historic, what you are up to in the world today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, like you guys introduced me, I'm the chief strategy officer at Historic, which is a change agency and a design thinking practice that serves primarily nonprofits. So we're in a day and age where culture, the economy, things are moving faster than ever, which means organizations, both for-profit and nonprofit, have to move and change faster than ever. So, whether that's brand fundraising, messaging, how does your organization, whether it's been around for three years, stay around for another three years? Or if it's been around for 75 years, how does it stay around for another 75 years? And we like to partner and do that work. That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

That's really cool. What was the thing that just kind of launched that? What was the sort of impetus to get out there with that work?

Speaker 1:

So probably the greatest unfair advantage that I was ever handed in life was 14, I was growing up at a church plant. So if your audience is unfamiliar with kind of the world of faith and how churches operate, they will plant other churches, which is almost like hey, you're going to go start a small business in a totally new place that doesn't necessarily know or want you, but you're going to go and do it. There's all kinds of implications for audiences and logistics. Back in the day, gimlet actually had a really great podcast season that was all about following startup founders and they did a season on church planting, which was really, really interesting.

Speaker 1:

But I was growing up at this church plant with my parents that were a part of it and I remember I had to have been 13 or 14 years old and you're like sitting there in like steel chairs in a gymnasium if you're familiar with like church planting life. Oh yeah, I remember thinking you know the individuals who are speaking from stage right now are using a lot of insider language. Like part of the reason this church plant is here is they're trying to reach an audience of people that is unaware of their message or what it is that they have to offer, but they're using language terms, value proposition, for lack of you know more theological terminology. That was totally missing. These people I remember sitting there at 13, 14 years old being these people with really good intentions, but they do not understand who's in the room right now and the things that they need to be saying to reach that audience.

Speaker 1:

So when I was 13, 14 years old, I all of a sudden was aware that I had this knack for how people interacted with words, with messaging, with language, with products. But I didn't know that was called strategy. I didn't know what messaging or positioning meant for a product, for a brand or an organization. But really early on, had that understanding in that moment of like oh, if you want to reach people with something, you have to understand who they are, where they're at their pains, what's going on in their life, and meet that with a specific message that unpacks what you have to offer in a way that they can understand. And that just led me into role after role where that skill set was refined and got me to where I'm at today. Wow.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so where was this church plant? What area of the country?

Speaker 1:

This is in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Speaker 3:

Milwaukee Okay, okay, so Milwaukee, okay. So where was this church plant? What area of the country? This is in the suburbs of Milwaukee, wisconsin, milwaukee Okay, okay, so Milwaukee, okay. So as a 14-year-old in Milwaukee, I'm just fascinated by your level of perception. I've got a 17, 16, and 14-year-old at home and I love them to death, but that level of perception is pretty impressive to me. So where do you think that came from? I mean, is that something you saw in your parents? Is that something that you just kind of like? It just was an aha for you.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think it had a lot to do with growing up in, I mean, what I'll affectionately refer to as the golden age of the internet. I mean YouTube had gotten to a place where it was there. A lot of people used it, but brands hadn't really grabbed onto it yet, so YouTube was really full of, like this individual. We didn't even use this language back then, but content creators that were doing you know, sketches or funny videos and the production quality, like wasn't anything to write home about yet. But I think in consuming content like that and finding it funny, I was like why do I find this funny? Why is this entertaining and engaging? These people are striking some kind of a cultural note or chord with this audience online and they're doing it because they know how to write, they understand their audience and how to show up for them. So I think it was growing up in a time where you know YouTube was coming to fruition, facebook was coming to fruition, you know the iPhone had come out and all of those items caught on and grew so quickly and rapidly when I was at a formative age because they were masterclasses and doing just that. So I think being around it at a formative age because they were master classes and doing just that. So I think, being around it at a kind of a younger malleable age, or maybe a young enough age to not know any better, you kind of just culturally understood it. I mean, I compare it a lot to what's happening today with social media podcasting.

Speaker 1:

I spend a lot of time helping legacy organizations understand what they should be doing on social media, what they should be doing with podcasting, and I meet these young people in the organizations that, again, like me, at that age they don't necessarily know to call something strategy or things like that, but they have this kind of cultural understanding of growing up in it. Well, if our brand is on social media like, this is what it should look and sound like and this is what the content should be. And it's just because they've grown up with it they understand how to show up in it. It's the difference between, you know, a radio broadcast and a podcast. Technically, yes, a podcast is audio inside of an RSS enclosure, but it culturally is dramatically different than a radio podcast. And younger millennials, gen Z, they just culturally intrinsically understand that as they're making content, they don't have to be taught, they don't need a strategic creative brief. They just understand the medium, having grown up in it and can just execute on it.

Speaker 3:

No, that's good, and I take back what I say about my kids, because now that you say that they really do teach me everything I know on social media, so yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

So my question in that is you're working with some of these like legacy brands and nonprofits and organizations. How do you balance some of that Like the traditional values, and then these like new innovations and trying to find that like where it's not, like, hey, it's out with the old and with the new, but it's that balance where they feel like it's a?

Speaker 1:

meshes with their identity 100%. I mean all of those strategic decisions have to be made through the lens of the unique mission, vision, values of the organization. The last thing that you should go and do is chase cool for cool's sake. But you can chase cool for your people. So you have to understand who your audience is.

Speaker 1:

But for a lot of those organizations I often consult them we have to spend time getting to know the internal culture of your organization. Your org might want to launch a best-in-class podcast, a best-in-class social media strategy, and I could write that for you and give it to you and train you on it. But if it doesn't line up culturally with how your organization behaves, it's not going to go anywhere. So myself, my team, we have to spend time with you, get to know the internal working culture of the organization, how you make decisions, how you organize your teams, how you treat trust in your organization and then help you come up with a strategy whether it's brand messaging, podcast, social media that the culture of your organization is actually capable of executing on. Otherwise, it's just going to be words on paper or images on a deck that aren't going to go anywhere.

Speaker 2:

How do you work with an organization? I know a lot of times core values, mission, vision a lot of organizations will set that and it's like an aspiration, like this is who we hope to be, versus like once you get in and you're working with them and you're starting to see maybe a misalignment of their internal culture versus how they want to be perceived. How do you kind of work through some of that?

Speaker 1:

So this is where what we call principles come into play. So it's one thing to have values and those might be words on a wall. I mean, I think we all remember Enron right, it's in Houston, I believe, where that all happened. I mean, just powerhouse of an organization and one of their values, funny enough, was integrity. And then the world and stockholders and total panic, watched as the entire executive team was taken away in handcuffs. That's one of the greatest examples of corporate fraud in like us history. Yeah, but one of their core values was integrity. So what happened?

Speaker 1:

Um, it's the, it's the working breakdown between your values and how your team actually works in light of them. There's this I think it's a Harvard business review study from a few years ago. I might get the percentage wrong, but it's something like 72% of employees don't understand what the values of their company or their nonprofit, doesn't matter mean in light of how they're supposed to do their work every day. So at Enron, sure value is integrity. What does that mean for how we work every day?

Speaker 1:

So principles are when we take okay, what are the values of your organization, and then a principle is okay on a day-to-day basis, how should your team be acting or working in light of that. So it could be your finance team, it could be your marketing team, your development team. You need to do some kind of an exercise with them where you take the values, the mission of the organization, you distill that into okay, in light of this value. Our principle is we work with this every day. So if it's integrity which I would argue we should assume you're operating with integrity, if that's right. If you have to put it on the wall, it's probably not. But if it means you know transparency or trust, what are your values? What does it actually mean for how you work on a day-to-day basis? If you can make that clear, provide that clarity to your team, it's going to go a long way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, okay. So we, you know we've we've been around a lot of nonprofits, we work with a lot of nonprofits. I have nonprofit experience in my background and you know I think what we see and I'm sure you see a lot is just amazing people that have these incredible visions, things that they were put on this earth to do, but then just the the all of the things that come with. You know running and creating that business and, and you know, doing those things. That's where it's like there can be a little bit of a disconnect between that passion and that vision and then actually structurally getting that work done. How do you all just intersect with the nonprofits, kind of in that space? And I think what would your encouragement be to the nonprofits who are listening of like, hey, here's how you can start to level up just some of the ways that you are working in the world?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing that I think I see holding back a lot of nonprofits and businesses too although the profit incentive tends to be a really clarifying reality in the for-profit world, but for nonprofits especially is the balance between relational and functional trust inside their organization. You might have the clearest mission, vision and a strategic three-year plan for how you're going to go accomplish those things, but if you don't have functional and relational trust balanced inside your organization, none of it's going to get executed on. So relational trust is you know you show up to work every day and do people care about me? Do they know I'm passionate? Are they going to have my back? Functional trust is did the work that you said you were going to get done? Get done.

Speaker 1:

And I it's really hard to live in the middle tension of those things. I interact with organizations all over the time that fall dramatically to one in the the middle tension of those things. I interact with organizations all over the time that fall dramatically to one side or the other where there's this really, really strong relational trust. Like we all hold hands and sing kumbaya and we're high-fiving each other in hallways and then you know that three-year strategic plan. We got a couple of those things done, but we're so passionate and that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

And and then on the other side I meet these orgs that like the functional trust, like people show up, they execute their operators, things get done. And then there's this if I showed up tomorrow and I had a cancer diagnosis, would my team care about that? And those are obviously some pretty animated examples on their side of the spectrum. But it goes to illustrate you need to have both of those things in your organization or your team is not going to be able to function correctly. It's attention to manage. How can you make both of those things work together where your team has that safety, that trust, they know they're cared for, but there's still an expectation and accountability to show up and get the important work that you're doing done. I see a lot of organizations get out over their skis, their sideways, energy one way or the other, because they haven't fixed that problem internally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So I kind of want to unpack. We did a little bit going into your history and you know how you got to where you're at. Kind of take us all the way back, like growing up Wisconsin, you're outside of Milwaukee, like what was life like in some of those early and doing these church plants. I just love to unpack some of your why that kind of led up to these things.

Speaker 1:

So the other really interesting aspect to my background is that I was homeschooled, and I think in a post-COVID world homeschooling is like a little bit of like this normal thing that people do. When I was growing up it was almost like cult-like activity or behavior. Some people looked on it as so you know, growing up I had a lot of freedom to explore the things that I was passionate about. That's maybe a really nice way of saying my mom should have been keeping a better eye on me and some of the things I was doing.

Speaker 1:

But you know that meant when I was 13, 14, when I was kind of having this realization of I seem to have this why are they saying it that way and watching YouTube videos and consuming this kind of new media of content that was rising.

Speaker 1:

I had all this freedom to mess around with Photoshop and I don't know how I got my hands on Final Cut X back in the day and had all the disks installed on this old Mac I had somehow been able to get my hands on, like Final Cut 10 back in the day and, like, had all the discs installed on this old Mac I had somehow been able to get my hands on. But I think I fell in love with the idea of you can create content and messages and reach people and entertain, educate, empower people via the internet, as long as you have something to say and a creative means of doing that. So I had very limited resources as a 14 to 17 year old but scraped together the resources that I could and made YouTube videos, did writing, had all these ideas that forced me and taught me how to use these tools. Do you guys remember Apple Motion? I spent all this time learning Apple Motion and that has really paid off in the long run A good investment.

Speaker 1:

But it really taught me how to work hard and to put my head down and if I didn't know how to do something, I was going to learn how to do that thing, which proved to be a really invaluable mindset and work ethic to have kind of launching into, you know, adult life post high school.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Yep, and Apple motion.

Speaker 1:

That was I spent we should bring it back, we should.

Speaker 2:

There, there was something very intuitive about it. Like it just yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm still. I don't. I don't spend a lot of time these days editing video anymore, but I've still got Final Cut on my Mac and I'd love an opportunity to open it back up. That's so awesome.

Speaker 3:

Same here. I love how old it makes me feel as you talk about loading 10 into your computer with all these disks. Final Cut 7 was my version, where I was like this is the best version, and when they made 10, they ruined everything. So yeah, the program you fell in love with. Real-time rendering.

Speaker 1:

Right, that was the like it was a big one, and now it's just an app that you download.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it caused a war almost.

Speaker 3:

Oh, man, okay, so talk to us through, then, just how some of these gifts and intuition started to shape into a career for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, growing up in kind of that faith environment in church planting, I actually I got my first like adult big boy job. I had turned 18 and the church that my parents had helped plant had grown pretty significantly and they actually hired me as soon as I turned 18, which in hindsight was probably not like the best decision that they ever made. But it helped me grow a ton because, you know, I was in this place where I knew I had these skillsets. I kind of wanted to go to college. College was expensive, I didn't really know what I was doing.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, I stayed in my hometown for a year and I worked full-time at this church on the communications team while all my friends went off to college and I, all of a sudden I had these coworkers that were, like you know, 35 up to like 50.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like this 18-year-old that's in the room like trying to run comms and do these things. So it was a massive moment of maturing for me. It taught me how to lead up to a senior leader, how to think and plan well advanced, to learn the difference between sometimes people will say one thing and they'll do the other thing, and then how do you kind of flex with that and still make things happen. I got about a year into that job and I was like I there's clearly a career of some capacity here for me, so I I think I do need to go to college now. So after about a year of that headed off to college to study communications, would end up still working kind of contract and remote for that church and got through my you know bachelor's degree in communications where because of all the monkeying around, I had done with things. I learned some things technically there but was kind of before ultimately stepping out of that and into the agency world where I'm at now.

Speaker 3:

Awesome, Awesome For you. You know, inside of historic, what are the moments that are just those like yes, I love the work that I'm doing, I'm so grateful to be in this space.

Speaker 1:

You know, at Historic we do a lot of teaching and coaching through a methodology called design thinking, which if you're unfamiliar, it's just really fancy language for having empathy for the end user. So pretty much any Fortune 500 brand or successful SaaS product or Starbucks, nike, oral-b it's a methodology they use to design products that surprise and delight their audiences and are designed to meet the end user where they're at with specific problems that they have. And nonprofits are actually really, really good at design thinking in certain ways. So I think of clients that I have that serve populations that are in poverty globally or are homeless here in the United States, and they are amazing at having empathy for those people where they're at whether that's a unique cultural context, a unique socioeconomic context and designing programs that meet those people where they're at and serve them really, really well. So nonprofits are amazing at design thinking when it comes to the group or cause that they're seeking to impact.

Speaker 1:

But that design thinking doesn't always carry over to this other unique group that they have to steward, which is their donor base. And all of a sudden, you know how do we meet these people where they're at, how do we serve them, how do we create messaging experiences that surprise and delight them and they forget. Like experiences that surprise and delight them and they forget. Like you guys are already amazing at this You're doing it for this group or this cause. You're already seeking the impact and kind of showing them.

Speaker 1:

Hey, here's how you apply those same tools. Here's how you can have the same conviction, the same passion that you have for this group or cause you're trying to serve. Here's how you can bring that to your donor base and serve them with the same level of conviction. It looks a little different, but it's the same care, the same conviction they can bring into it. So I love being able to teach some of those tools and methodologies and show them that really it's just another people group that you're passionate about and that you get to serve. And when we kind of see that change in thinking happen all of a sudden, it unlocks like new ideas, new things that they can do with them and they get their donor base even more fired up about supporting the cause or partnering with them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's so awesome. Are there any stories that come to mind that were like those pivotal, where you saw that like light bulb moment for them, where it flipped, and it's like the impact and the result that came from that?

Speaker 1:

You know we just got done last year, working with a really, really large organization, kind of rethinking and re-approaching their branded monthly giving program, which in the nonprofit world, is like one of your bread and butters.

Speaker 2:

It's like how to corners.

Speaker 1:

It had been kind of stagnant for a bit, didn't have any real life to it. So we partnered with this organization to kind of look at hey, what are the everyday products, experiences, the issues that your donors are seeing in the world, and how do we come up with a monthly giving program that mirrors that and almost feels and sounds like one of the subscriptions they might have every day and the value they get from that. But for your organization and it was kind of a really fresh, new, exciting way of looking at it we got to do some really really cool marketing and advertising work that came out of that. So really all of this work comes down to can you think differently and can you have empathy for the end user and where they're at? So often we get into organizations and at first we come in really really fresh and aware of our surroundings and maybe who the end user is, but all of a sudden these blinders start to come on of like, oh we have these internal processes and the finance and compliance team needs this and we're on this technology stack that has this limitation. So we need to make sure this giving form flows in this way, and those are legitimate problems to solve and work through.

Speaker 1:

But wherever you can, can you change things or adjust things? Not to appease or meet internal needs that your organization has, but to meet needs and meet the donor and user that you're going after. It's so key. But if you can make that change in thinking, it will unlock almost everything for you In order to do something.

Speaker 1:

I say this all the time to organizations we're working with in order to do something you've never done before. You have to do something you've never done before. I mean, innovation is a word that's just been like beaten to death since 2020. Every organization wants to innovate, but I meet so many organizations that want to innovate, but to keep that innovation inside of well, we work in this framework and this is how our teams are structured. We can do this new thing as long as it lines up with the exact way that we're used to working in. It's like well, that new thing is not actually going to go anywhere because it's not a new thing. It's just you doing the same old thing over and over again. So you have to be willing to make decisions from the perspective of the end user wherever you can, but then you also have to be willing to start working in a potentially brand new or maybe scary or unfamiliar way, but good things always come with that.

Speaker 2:

Stepping out of the box.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I mean, in addition to just kind of that thinking, you know, with the end user in mind, that skill of empathy, any other trends that you see that just help nonprofits to just stay in that healthy and impactful space?

Speaker 1:

I mean in my opinion well, that's not my opinion. This is probably a globally recognized fact. The world is changing faster than it ever has. I think in the 1960s the average time that a business would be on the S&P 500 was 60 years, and now it's 18. So culture, technology, the economy they all move faster than ever.

Speaker 1:

In order to keep up with that, your organization has to be willing to try and do the new things like I was just talking about. So it's maybe the answer for your organization to grow is not necessarily this strategic new initiative or we're going to change our name. Maybe some of those things might be the issue, or maybe it's the way that your team shows up and works. Maybe it's the way that authority and trust is held in your organization. There's this really great book, formula X. I'm not really a business fable guy, but it takes illustrations from the Formula One racing world and applies them to how any organization, for-profit or non-profit can innovate and stay ahead. So in Formula One they are not necessarily focused on making the car faster by making the engine more efficient. I don't know anything about cars or engineering, but they're focused on reducing the drag on the vehicle and if they can reduce the drag on the vehicle, by default, the vehicle will move faster. So in a time of rapid, unprecedented change, where is there drag in your organization?

Speaker 1:

And if you can reduce that drag, your organization is naturally going to speed up, which means you're going to have the ability to flex to the unique problems or challenges that are going to come to you with the speed of our world changing. It could be the programs for the people group you're trying to impact need to change. If you're moving faster, you're going to have the ability to change them. Do you need a boost in fundraising? If you're moving faster, you're likely going to have the bandwidth and the skill to do those things. All comes down to being able to move faster in our emerging world and culture.

Speaker 2:

So good, I love that. Where's the drag in your organization? Sure, so good, I love that. Where's the drag in your organization? Um, as, what are some of the pitfalls maybe that you've seen in organizations who have tried to do this on their own? Or it's like hey, we know that we need to innovate, think different, they go for the rebrand or change their name, like what are some of those things? You've seen that it's like, hey, maybe don't, here's some landmines, don't go down this path because you're trying to look for change.

Speaker 1:

And this is maybe the thing that all consultants say, but I've seen it be true time and time again, even in my own life. I think this is true at a personal level. Having that objective outside voice to speak into you and to force you to think in different ways is so key. You're never fully aware of what all your biases are or what you're assuming about your organization or about yourself. So having someone from the outside whether it's an organization like Historic or you know, is there another senior leader of another organization that's similar to yours but different that you could have come in and ask you some hard questions? There's a great Scott Galloway quote that greatness is found in the agency of others.

Speaker 1:

You can't do things all on your own.

Speaker 1:

So if your organization is trying to change, trying to innovate again whether that's fundraising, brand reinventing, programs for the people group or cause you're trying to impact you can't do it alone. You need to have outside voices, and those could be other partners you have in the nonprofit world. Is that a for-profit business you're partnered with and maybe they financially contribute to you? But do they have smart, innovative leaders that you know aren't as familiar with the work that you do, but could their fresh eyes and lack of blinders that maybe you have come in and see things that you haven't been able to see before. In the design thinking world, this is called divergent thinking. How can we force ourselves to think about the problem from perspectives or ways that we've never thought of before, and if we do that long enough, we're likely going to find insights or ideas that are ultimately going to lead to some kind of a solution probably say 2024 was a difficult year just in terms of fundraising and donor engagement and with just some of the economy things, things just felt a little bit more down.

Speaker 3:

What would your encouragement or insights be around fundraising?

Speaker 1:

You know where I always encourage organizations to start whether you know their organization has seen a boom in fundraising and they want to take that to the next level, or if they've seen a bit of a dip and they're trying to climb their way out of that is to go back to the basis of generosity for their organization. So, philosophically, or in some cases even theologically, how does your organization think about generosity? What are your unique convictions around how people give, why people give, why do you give, even if you're an individual inside of this organization? Only once you have a solid handle on those things are you going to be able to build a fundraising strategy, maybe select a fundraising partner, unless you have a clear conviction around those answers. Because unless you have a clear conviction around how to fundraise, why to fundraise, how you think about generosity, you're not going to know truly how to approach your donors. Well, you need to have that clear understanding first, internally, and that's ultimately going to impact the strategy that you have going out.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Who are some organizations out there you feel like are doing that really well? Are they like inspire you? As you see it, You're like man, like they've got their messaging on point. They're really connecting with their donors. Is there anyone that comes to mind for you?

Speaker 1:

You know I love organizations that are absolutely amazing at storytelling. Liberty in North Korea is an amazing example of that. Hannah Song is the CEO over there, an amazing organization telling the stories of the people in North Korea in ways that I don't think we're seeing a lot of in kind of our modern news cycle. I'm also a really, really big fan of Dollar Four. Jared Walker is the CEO and founder over there and they crush medical debt and Jared does this amazing thing every week and this is almost kind of founder storytelling where he posts every week.

Speaker 1:

Here's a list of the medical bills that we got rid of for people this week and it's just all this. It was like $10,000 here, $35,000 over here, and there is a name and a story behind each one of those people that their lives are now changed because of what that organization did. So you know, storytelling can kind of be the classic, traditional. You know here's the story of an individual, um kind of what they went through, how they persevered, how they're doing now. Liberty in north korea does a great job of telling those stories and almost kind of rebranding how the world thinks about the people in North Korea and what they're undergoing there. But then there's other ways to tell stories, too, like what Jared is doing on LinkedIn. Here's the day-to-day, week-to-week impact that the organization is having. That's super fun to watch on.

Speaker 3:

LinkedIn. That's so good, and this led right into, I think, some of my next thoughts of just talking about social media and, I think, again, a lot of organizations we speak to. Sometimes there's just that fear factor of what should we do with this? How do we engage? What's the best thing? What's the right platform? How do we engage? What's the best thing? What's the right platform? What are some of those trends, along with just, obviously, the storytelling being right at the heart of some of the strategy? How would you encourage nonprofits to engage?

Speaker 1:

in their social media. It's interesting time kind of the three primary user behaviors that we saw on social media not just for nonprofits, for any organization was entertainment People want to catch up with their friends and watch cats fall off of things. Education People want to feel like the time that they're spending on their phones they're learning something and bettering themselves, where we really saw the rise of carousel content, where you swipe through something and read and learn. And then empowerment People want to feel like they're able to make a difference in their lives, a difference in their community. They're connected to local and global causes. So for the longest time I used to train and coach hey, if your organization can put out content that either leans really heavily in one of those three categories or finds a way to create content that's entertaining, educating, empowering, it's going to be killer content, it's going to be engaged with, and I think that's still true.

Speaker 1:

But man, oh man, has the entertainment category just been the one that grows the most? I mean especially like comedic, humorous content. I mean, you know, liquid Death has just been overused as an example, right, and it's all marketers talk about these days, but it's really really entertaining, humorous stuff and it works because the product is really good too. But so many nonprofits are so afraid to use humor or to tap into entertainment or something that's comedic. It's like our cause is so important. How dare we apply a comedic lens to it.

Speaker 1:

And that's not to say that like, oh, we talk about our organization, like these really fun joking ways, and comedians speak at all of our major donor dinners. That's not necessarily right, but if you're looking to get people's attention, especially on social media, I would challenge you are there ways that your brand could show up in a humorous, entertaining way on social media? Maybe that's not right for your homepage, maybe it's not right for the email intro series that you have, but that's becoming the expectation on social media. So if you can meet users there with it, your social content is going to get engaged with.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. That's excellent. Yeah, it's hard to kind of wind things down here. What gets you excited? What are you most excited about in the future? What do you see on the horizon? That's got you fired up right now.

Speaker 1:

You know I love the work that we do. I love the organizations that we get to do it with. I get the most fired up, though, when I get to meet, interact with, train and coach young, up-and-coming leaders that are in organizations. I mean, I think the oldest band of the millennials are in their mid-40s now and are stepping into executive director roles at these organizations, but there is a whole level of younger millennials of Gen Z who are working hard, learning and they're in these organizations and they want to make a difference, and I love meeting those folks, getting to coach them.

Speaker 1:

Here's how you can make a huge impact for your brand and your role right now, but here's also how you can level up and lead up to your senior leaders and start to provide influence and leadership in your organization. Past, maybe what's expected of your role? Brands at the end of experience, great product or service, but if your people, if the internal culture of your organization is not aligned, your brand is going to make a promise with all those other things that it actually can't deliver on. So I love getting to meet with and train the young, up and coming leaders in these organizations about what it means to work and serve in light of the brand and the promise that their organization is making and how they can maximize that. I'm all about the leaders of tomorrow Awesome.

Speaker 3:

For our listeners that want to connect with you, connect with Historic, what's the best place for them to go?

Speaker 1:

Feel free to shoot me an email at james at makehistoriccom. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn or you can check out our website at makehistoriccom.

Speaker 2:

Awesome.

Speaker 3:

Well, James, thank you so much for your time today. So good to meet you and hear about the work that you're doing. Really appreciate you being with us.

Speaker 1:

Thanks Matt, thanks Mason.

Speaker 3:

Awesome. And to all of our listeners, thanks for tuning in for another episode of Stories that Move. We look forward to seeing you next time, Thanks. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories that Move brought to you by DreamOn Studios.

Speaker 2:

Make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode. And remember, if you or your organization have a story you're eager to share with the world, Dream On Studios is here to bring that story to life.

Speaker 3:

Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook or visit our website at dreamonstudiosio. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life, but that's why we exist and we've walked alongside hundreds of clients doing that very thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference. Let's make yours heard.

Speaker 3:

Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter.

Speaker 2:

Take care everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Matter. Take care everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Move.